7 Quick Takes (Vol 196)

How the heck did 2013 come sneaking in?!? And if you suffer from triskaidekaphobia then this is going to be a really bad year for you. This week 7 Quick Takes is being hosted over at Moxie Wife SO when you are done starting your new year off right with my well reasoned and insightful blather you will need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my rapidly approaching sugar detox rampage, over to Moxie Wife.

Let’s ring in the New Year with blather!

1.
Shoe Queen and I finally made it over to the theater yesterday to get in a showing of Les Miserables. I will tell you right off the bat that I was never an absolute fan of the stage musical.

Stop yelling at me!!!!

That being said, the movie was very, very good. It was a bit too long, judging by how much I shifted in my seat. The music was excellent, which I expected. There were a great many very close up shots of people singing their hearts out which meant we say a lot of tongues and teeth and the occasional saliva. If there is any justice in Hollywood then Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman will both win Oscars for their performances.

And Russell Crowe should not pick any more roles that require him to both sing AND act. Because he cannot do them together with any proficiency. I would term his performance as WOODEN.

2.
Chez Knit is a total and complete mess. And that just drives me right to Crazytown. We have been go, go, go and party, party, party and people, people, people for close to five weeks. The clean sheets for all the beds are still sitting in a basket in the upstairs hallway. The Christmas decorations are still up, although the lights are now off. My floors and carpets have completely forgotten what it is like to be vacuumed and washed. And there are clean dishes that are in piles on the counter just waiting to be put away.

Good grief!!!!

Guess what I will be doing today.

Or next week for SURE!

3.
Obviously if you have been hanging around my crazy life for any length of time you know that 4 days a week (usually) I am out the door at 6:45a to walk with some friends. We do two miles, either around the local lake or around the local outlet mall (if the weather is truly inclement). We walk rain or shine, dead of night or really hot or really cold. Well all except yesterday when it was 2F when I got up. There is just no way to make that kind of walk fun.

But in all the years that we have been walking together I have never had a pair of boots that were good for walking in. Oh I have boots, fake Uggs if truth be told. And they are great and warm but not suited for walking at a 4 mph pace. So even in the most coldest and snowiest of weather I have been wearing two pair of wool socks and my tennis shoes. And if there is lots of ice and snow my YakTrax for traction. Even well knit, warm wool socks cannot make your toes stay warm in bitter weather when you are wearing tennis shoes and walking in the cold and snow.

But Wednesday things came to a head. It was cold….11F….when I arrived at the lake. And the paths had not been plowed although they were a bit packed down. And I didn’t have boots, only tennis shoes and Trax. And not quite half way around the lake I called it quits because my feet were SO FROZEN that they hurt to walk on.

WIMP!

So Wednesday afternoon I bought a cheap pair of boots at Wally Mart, a pair from the men’s section actually that are proportioned so that I can get my feet in them with two pair of wool socks on and still feel comfortable.

And today…..nice and toasty feet all the way around the lake.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

4.
I am still thinking that I am crazy for taking on a 365 Photo Project. I am the person who doesn’t do New Years Resolutions because I know I am not going to keep them.

And I am trying to be thoughtful about this particular project because I want to be intentional about my photography.

Who know, it may just be a year full of pictures of birds. Don’t get me wrong, I love birds and I am fascinated by them. But I am not sure that is really branching out and stretching myself photographically.

I think I am also going to give myself permission to use the iphone camera occasionally for the photo of the day, depending on the subject. Does it also count if the photo that I put up is one that I took recently but just hadn’t downloaded til that day?

I think it does! My project, my rules.

I am also working on a personal photo project that I am sure I will show you at some point in time……maybe……if you haven’t already run screaming into the night.

Please don’t leave me.

5.
One of the hardest things HHBL and I are going to have to do this first month of 2013 is break the sugar habit that has developed since Thanksgiving and in the weeks after that. It has been COOKIES, COOKIES all the time around here. And there might have been some cake, and coconut candy thrown in there. Also at least one incident of Death by Chocolate. And then there was that “Chocolate Bomb” cake that we had for dessert when we went out to dinner with LaurenLeap and The Tech Guy.

And I might have had a cookie already this morning. But it was a small one and so lonely as all the rest of his cookie mates had already been consumed. And cookies are so good with morning coffee…..

It is going to be a really LONG month.

6.
Last week Shoe Queen’s friends surprised she and Slim Jim with an impromptu breakfast cooked in the kitchen here at Chez Knit.

Well done Allie, Abby and Elyse!

7.
You know, I did make one resolution this year come to think of it. In the past several years I have slacked off in my journaling. I played around with my journaling habit several years ago, switching things up a bit, and I find that wasn’t a good idea as it sort of created havoc and then I didn’t journal for a bit and then a bit more. And for me journaling serves a purpose beyond just putting down what I did. It is a cathartic outlet for feelings and thoughts. For prayers, for ticket stubs stuck in the pages.

And after a mini emotional melt down last weekend… I realized that I really needed to get back to the journaling.

And so I have gone back to typing it out on the computer and then printing the entry out and putting it in the journal. Yes that seems “clunky” I am sure but it works for me. I can type much quicker than I can write long hand. And it also gives me the ability to add and edit as the day goes on. I actually have a Word doc that is set up with the correct margins and font that I like and it just sits open in my system tray for the day. Then once a week I print it out and put it in the journal. This is the way that I had been journaling for many years and it worked well for me. I am not sure why I decided to change things up but I won’t do THAT again.